Chapter Nine
The office door slid open, and as Patria stepped inside, Via caught a brief glimpse of Clari waiting in the corridor before the crystal closed behind her mater.
Patria, eyes bloodshot, glanced at the corner where Via sat. She wrung her hands even as the nanites she summoned flowed in a shimmering haze from the walls. "I'll let your friend inside in a moment, Via. But first, I need to know what she knows about all of this. Answer honestly and without reservation."
Via grimaced as the microscopic machines sank into her, tugging irresistibly at her will. Her mouth began moving the instant she fully grasped the question. "She only knows that the security footage for Ivan's room is missing. I asked her to access the records for me but didn't think it was safe to tell her more."
Her mater nodded, the relief stark on her face.
Because this means she won't have to offer the same choice to Clari? Via bit her lip and shuddered. Or would she even bother letting someone who isn't family choose?
"Good girl," Patria said. "I'll let her come in, then." Her will pressed against Via's own. "When she does, you will say nothing about your grandmater's theories. You will not speak ill of the Trellis or make any accusations. And if Clari asks why you've been sentenced to silence in death or silence in life, you'll only tell her that you're not allowed to speak about the matter. She's the future Chief Communicator. She'll understand that some things must be kept classified for the good of the world."
Via couldn't keep her lip from curling as disgust twisted through her. "Yes, Chief Navigator."
"Via..." Her mater trailed off as Via turned her head to the side, unable to look at the woman for even a second longer. Patria sighed, and then her footsteps padded away and the door hissed quietly open. "Thanks again for coming, Clari. Hopefully you can get her to see reason."
"I'll try." The Communicator stepped into the room, eying Patria's back with contempt as the woman left. Then, when the door closed and they were alone, she glanced down at Via with a worried smile. "Hey, you."
Via tried to curl her lips in return, and then the expression faded. "Hey."
Clari cleared her voice and glanced casually around the office. "So, your mater wants me to convince you not to--" Nanites hummed, and she heaved a sigh. "Oh good, the security system is offline."
"Of course," Via said grimly. "My mater wants no record of... of..." The words lodged in her chest, almost painful. She coughed, but the barrier was purely mental and she couldn't force the words out. "I can't say it."
Clari nodded, eyes sympathetic. "I know, but don't worry. I remember everything."
Via frowned at the non-sequitur. "Remember?"
The strawberry blond glanced at the door and lowered her voice. "It'll all come back to you in two weeks, right before the Trellis goes up."
Via grimaced at the word, opening her mouth to curse the horrible thing, but even that was taken from her. You will not speak ill of the Trellis, her mater's words echoed in her memory.
Screw the Trellis! she howled inside. And screw you, Ma!
Clari hurried forward to crouch before her. "Don't strain against the compulsion. It's okay, I know what you're trying to say."
It was only then that she realized her jaw was working but no sound was coming out. "How?" she asked, relieved she could say that much at least.
Clari quirked a wry smile. "You told me everything." She held her hands up as Via frowned. "I know, you don't remember. Just trust me. This morning you asked me to make us both forget everything I know about the investigation and your grand ma's research." She scrunched her nose. "You wanted to protect me. But this situation you're in now is precisely why I didn't want to forget. So I..." She offered a sheepish shrug. "Well..."
"Lied your ass off to me about removing your own memories," Via said dryly, rolling her eyes even as relief swept through her. Clari knew everything. She didn't have to try to explain around the compulsion. I'm not alone. "Well, thank the Eternal Radiance for your stubbornness. But now you know why I need to..." She gulped, dread churning in her belly. "Well, you know."
"Sacrifice yourself like a fool?" Clari's tone was gentler than her words, and she reached out, resting a hand on the arms Via had wrapped around her knees. "Yeah, I know why you think you need to do that." Her eyes narrowed, and her fingers tightened almost painfully. "But I have a better idea."
Via frowned. Hope and unease warred in her. If Clari offered a way out that they both later learned wouldn't work, she didn't know if she'd have the strength to voluntarily face death again. "What idea?"
Clari smiled. "Well, not die, for one."
Via shook her head. "I won't be able to look at myself in the mirror if I choose to live in silence, Clari."
"Don't think of it as living in silence," the strawberry blond said, shifting from her crouch and sitting crosslegged before Via. She leaned forward, her eyes bright. "Think of it as biding your time. Who knows what might happen if you just wait your ma out? No compulsion or memory block is perfect. Sometimes there are ways around them, you know that. So live, and find ways to fight this. Then you can die as a little old lady and keep fighting when you take the truth with you into the Caeles... along with a little extra."
Via blinked. "Extra?"
Her friend's lips curled into a sly smile. "An eidolon is basically an uploaded copy of a person's mind, right?" Via nodded, brows knit, and the Communicator continued more eagerly. "Every time you interact with nanites, a new copy of your mind gets saved in the Caeles, to be resurrected there when you die."
"Yeah, so?"
"So everything in your head ends up in the Caeles. And when the Trellis goes up, it will need the Caeles for its everyday functioning." Her smile was positively smug now.
I have no idea what you're going on about... Via sighed. "Clari, I'm a Navigator. I'm very smart. But I'm not computer-smart. I don't know where you're going with this."
"Okay, the short version?" The Communicator lowered her voice with a quick glance at the door. "I can plant a computer virus in your mind that will sabotage the Trellis and make it eventually destroy itself."
"What?" Via squawked, then lowered her voice to a whisper as Clari cast her a warning look. "How?"
"The Trellis is nothing but a giant nanite lattice. And nanites are just a cross between a miniature computer, tiny 3D printer, and fusion reactor. No one has figured out how to make major changes to them yet, but there are a few interesting things that can be tweaked."
"You want to hack the nanites?" Via gasped, then continued as her friend shrugged. "And make them do what, exactly?"
Clari smirked. "I'm thinking I could slip a code into the Caeles that will turn a nanite here or there into a wandering computer virus. It'll shut down whatever execution the nanite was originally running and command it to spread the virus to any other nanite it touches. Eventually, the Trellis would turn into a cloud of useless dead nanites."
"Awesome," Via grinned. This could work. It could really work. "Can you do it right after the Trellis goes up?" She paused, brow furrowing. "Although, why use me? You're programming the Caeles, Clari." She flapped her hand. "Just slip the virus directly into the code."
"That won't work, tempting though it is. My colleagues aren't fools. If I change the code just like that--" The strawberry blond snapped her fingers. "They'll spot it in an instant."
"Darn," Via said. "But I assume they won't notice something like that if it's hiding inside an eidolon's head?" She chuckled darkly. "At least, not until the Trellis turns into nothing but a cloud of rogue nanites before their eyes."
"Close, except I can't tear the Trellis down in one go." Clari shrugged as Via frowned. "Well, I mean, I could, but that would be a bad idea. People would figure out what happened in an instant and just start over from scratch. I doubt I'd be able to pull it off twice without someone realizing I'm responsible and... stopping me."
"So you want to make the damage subtle," Via said, nodding slowly.
"Exactly. I won't get away with it if the effect is too large-scale or immediate. My colleagues would just get rid of the bad nanites and replace them once I'm out of the way." Clari arched her brows. "But if I hide the code inside an eidolon's mind and let it gradually wear away at the Trellis, people may not notice what's happening until it's too late. And even if they do notice, they might fail to understand what they're seeing or know how to stop it. It'll look like an anomaly instead of, you know, sabotage."
Via smiled. "Do me a favor? Make it so that every time a Chief Terraformer uses the Trellis, a few rogue nanites will be released. Let them take the public blame for their own..." The words caught in her throat but flowed freely through her mind. For their own crappy invention malfunctioning.
"Brutal," Clari said with a smirk. "I like the way you think."
"So, how soon can you plant the virus in my head?"
Clari met her eyes. "As soon as you promise not to die."
For a moment, they stared at each other. Via broke the gaze first, looking down at her knees. "But that still means I'll have to stay silent, Clari. Probably forget, too." She swallowed as her likely future played out in her mind. She'd kiss her ma's cheek like a good daughter, unaware that the woman who had given her life was also willing to take her life, even if reluctantly. She shuddered. "My mater will compel me, and I suspect she'll have your ma come pay me a visit too for good measure."
"Yeah, but this way you have an assurance that, eventually, the Trellis will come down. And if you live out your life, every time the nanites update your future eidolon, the code will be released into the Caeles again. You'll do more to tear down the Trellis by living than by dying." Clari shook her head, eyes pleading. "So please don't try to be some kind of martyr. Do what is best for you and the world."
"Okay," Via said quietly.
Clari peeked at her with hope gleaming in her eyes. "Really?"
"Yeah. I don't want to become a cloud of nanites pretending to be human yet. Let's sabotage the Trellis instead." She held up a hand as Clari grinned. "But on a related note, I need you to do one more thing for me after you're done messing with my head."
"Hmm?" Clari hummed, still beaming.
"I need you to mess with Mitis's head." My first domino...
The Communicator blinked. "Mitis? Why?"
"The Chief Terraformers rely on him for religious counsel. He may be the only person they actually listen to." Via's eyes narrowed as her idea returned to her. "I need him to convince them to do something in the name of the Eternal Radiance..."
Five minutes later, Clari--temporarily mindwiped--led Patria back into the office...and her own mater.
"Oh thank the Eternal Radiance you changed your mind," Via's ma breathed, cradling Via's cheeks between her hands as Sententia stood next to Clari.
"No," Via said, twisting her head out of Patria's touch, "thank Clari."
Patria smiled at the younger of the two Communicators. "Thank you, too," she whispered.
Sententia cleared her throat and still managed to make it sound dainty. "Yes," she said as everyone looked at her. "I'm proud of you, Clari." She tilted her chin to the door. "But now Patria and I have some work to do, hmm?"
Clari glanced from one Chief to the other. "Still not going to enlighten me as to what this is all about?"
"You know that I can't give you details," Patria said, brushing relieved tears from her eyes. "Just rest assured that it is for the good of the world."
"Ah, I see," Clari said. She smirked. "Or rather, I don't." The strawberry blond headed to the door. "Well, I'll leave you all to it, then."
As the door slid shut behind her friend, Via rose to her feet and crossed her arms as her mater gave Sententia a nod. Nanites rose around the two Chiefs, a humming mirage-like distortion in the air.
Via met her mater's eyes. "You won't be able to hide the truth forever," she said, and then could not recall what she'd just been talking about.
***
I wonder if Grand Ma is watching this from the Caeles. Via sighed, her lips quirking in a wry smile. Probably not. She was never one for pageantry or technology, and this is both.
Around her, Via's family stood on the white crystal pavilion in their ceremonial togas, politely applauding as Patria stepped aside and swept her arm out to welcome the Chief Terraformers.
Umbrata and Lucina ascended the steps and took center stage, and the crowd standing beneath the twilight borderland sky cheered.
A hush fell over the five hundred colonists as the elderly twins lifted their arms to the sky. Humming nanites rose from soil and air and began to glow greenish-blue as they gathered in swirling discs between the Chief Terraformers' fingers. The old women allowed the lights to expand for a few moments, until the hum of the nanites rose to a shriek. The twins held the orbs of writhing light out, presenting them to the colony, and the people held their breath, leaning forward as one.
Then the twins flung out their hands and cast the balls of cyan fire in opposite directions.
Pageantry, a voice whispered in Via's head as the nanites streaked away into the day-side and the night-side like meteors. They've already programmed the two towers to do the heavy lifting.
Via turned her attention to the woman taking shape in her mind's eye. "Grand Ma, you came."
The eidolon crossed her arms tightly over her dusky-rose dress. Yes. I must witness this. Sadness darkened her eyes.
Via sighed and nodded. Her Grand Ma had spent her whole life studying the native flora and fauna. Now, countless organisms would die in the blink of an eye.
Via swallowed and tried not to think about Data. She offered up a prayer to the Eternal Radiance that he'd somehow be okay.
Murmurs rose among the colonists, and several people craned their necks.
Via looked eastward as well, toward where the sun sat on the horizon as a thin red crescent. She squinted.
Then the breath stalled in her chest as awe overcame her.
Over the distant hills, something like lightning streaked across the sky. But this lightning shined cyan and rushed across the upper atmosphere like a great net cast by a celestial fisherman. As it neared, vibrations shook the earth beneath Via's feet, and a celestial hymn rang out in the heavens.
A strange new fluttering thrum rose in Via's mind, and she wasn't the only Navigator to gasp and look to and fro as six distant stars made themselves known.
The nearest pulsars, she realized in wonder. Before, she'd had to concentrate in order to sense them, and hadn't bothered trying in years. Navigators hadn't needed to use pulsar navigation to chart courses through the stars for several generations. But now there were vastly more nanites than before, and the newborn lattice augmented her magical senses.
She wasn't alone. In the crowd, several Lifesupporters gasped and winced. Mitis stumbled at Via's mater's side and clutched his chest below his blazing emerald laurel. "So much death," he whispered.
And then Via saw it. Beneath the advancing fiery lattice in the sky, the earth heaved. Spore towers, smaller plant-like lifeforms, and other creatures peeled up from the soil. As the organisms rose, they disintegrated into countless motes of cyan light as the nanite swarm used the raw matter to fashion more nanites. The light rose like mist from the sterilized land and took its place in the sky within the lattice.
To Via's surprise and relief, the Trellis halted overhead, and out in the west, only a single lonely isle of light glowed.
Umbrata lowered her arms. "And then the Eternal Radiance spoke unto the People," she said, and Via recognized the passage from the Ovidiana scripture. "And our god said, 'This world is your home. Fashion it into a garden where you might live. Plant it well. Care for it, that it may become a Garden of Light.'"
Lucina nodded at her sister's words and smiled. "Today, we have done the Eternal Radiance's will and have ushered in a new era for our people. The Trellis has successfully bonded to my eldest son, who shares the burden with his brother of holding and protecting it as the first in a long line of bearers. Umbrata and I hereby abdicate our positions as Chief Terraformers, surrendering the reins of our hereditary power into my twin sons' capable hands. Meanwhile, the lands of the day-side have been cleared and prepared for agriculture, and the Trellis stretches around the planet's entire day-side hemisphere. It will supplement the sunlight produced by our red dwarf star with light suitable for crops from Earth and will shield us from solar flares, among countless other wonders."
Umbrata extended her arm westward. "However, we have left the night-side hemisphere untouched save periodic isles of light." She inclined her head toward Mitis. "This decision was made per our priest's wise counsel. The dark unholy lands between our godly human settlements will be given over to the lawless, brutal wilds as a reminder of the Eternal Radiance's absence should we fail to obey Its will and make this world a Garden of Light."
"Meanwhile," Lucina said, raising her hands to the lattice gleaming above, "let us look to the Trellis as a reminder of the Eternal Radiance's light and succor. So long as we persist in following Its will, the Trellis will be like the light of the Eternal Radiance's own hand in the sky. May it be an open, generous hand to support our endeavors as we transform this planet into a Garden of Light and work for the good of the world."
On the other side of the stage, Clari-- standing beside her mater in a dark blue toga--caught Via's attention. Via lifted a brow at the smug intensity of the Communicator's gaze.
In the night-side, a throbbing sound echoed lowly in the darkness beyond the Trellis. Several colonists shifted nervously, some drawing nanites from the soil.
Lucina held up a hand. "Don't worry. Our sacred Trellis will repel xenos and other creatures. Never again will the mindless beasts of this world terrorize those who walk in the light."
Even as Via sighed in relief, she glanced into the darkness, scanning for the creatures thrumming in the night. Was her Grand Ma's xenos pup safe, somewhere far from here? Even a mindless beast deserved to live.
"I'm glad the Trellis didn't destroy Data's habitat," she murmured, shifting her attention to the silently watching eidolon in her mind.
So am I, Sweetheart, her grand ma said, but her eyes were agonized as she gazed at the barren day-side hills. So am I.
Via turned toward the night-side and frowned. Out in the star-studded twilight, something golden sparked at the edge of the distant Trellis isle, so tiny that even Via's augmented vision nearly missed it. A few seconds later, a second glittering golden mote joined it.
Via squinted, wondering if she should tell someone, then shrugged. It's such a small thing. I doubt it's a problem.
Smiling, she turned her attention back to her grand ma. "You said you came here to witness. Did you see what you hoped to see?"
Oh yes, Kaitlyn said, and her gaze in Via's mind's eye narrowed at the golden motes as they drifted to and fro in the chilly breeze. Yes, I certainly did.
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CHAPTER ARTWORK
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The Trellis in the borderlands
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